Lio Rush explains how he and Mark Henry squashed their beef in AEW

Back in 2019, rumors of heat on Lio Rush backstage at WWE led to a public debate between Rush and Mark Henry.

Lio spoke about pay issues and what he felt were outdated, and racially insensitive, hazing practices. Henry was irked the younger wrestler didn’t take his counsel on behind-the-scenes issues, and criticized Rush’s money management skills while defending wrestling’s locker room culture.

The real-life feud simmered down for a while, but flared up in a big way after Rush was released by WWE last spring.

Now, with both men on Tony Khan’s payroll at AEW, will they be able to co-exist? Sounds like it, as Lio told Renee Paquette on the latest Oral Sessions they’ve come to an understanding and are ready to move forward at their new company:

“Me and Mark Henry’s relationship is super cordial now. I think it came down to two very strong personalities and two very different eras of wrestling. I think we agreed to disagree, and we’re about to be working together now. AEW is such an incredible place to be, and it would be foolish of us to carry on any kind of, whatever it was, because it was pretty random and wild.

“I want to take you back to the first time I was in AEW. The first time I met Tony Khan, I remember I was walking backstage and I was trying to meet Tony Khan in person for the first time. Somebody told me he was in his office. I’ll never forget it. It was like a movie scene. I opened up the door a little bit, and I saw Tony Khan. I opened it up even more and I saw Mark Henry. I’m like, out of all the times, why now, but I’m glad it happened that way because Tony knew about the little issues we had together. He said we should probably talk it out. We all agreed. We talked a little bit during that night, but then I saw him again the other week. It was me coming down the hotel elevator. I opened up the elevator, and there’s Mark Henry in the elevator. I’m like, ok, great. We started talking.

“Later on in the night, we figured we should take a picture because I thought that was a cool thing in itself that we were even able to have a conversation. I thought it would be cool for everybody to know that we had that conversation and squashed it.”

Getting together and speaking one-on-one worked where talking at each other in interviews and on social media didn’t. Who’d a thunk it?

In all seriousness, it’s great these two have come to an understanding